Free Your Breath, Free Your Life Workshop

The ever-increasing speed, stress, and disharmony of the modern world not only conditions us to a way of living in which the future is often felt to be more important than the present, but also cuts us off from the immediate experience of ourselves as living, breathing beings. As a result, many of us live the lives of unconscious, breathless automatons, rushing faster than time itself into an imaginary future and seldom present to the mystery and miracle of our lives right now and here. For many of us in our busy, anxiety-filled lives, our breathing is so constricted and incomplete that it undermines our health, our vitality, and our consciousness. Such breathing also deprives us of one of the great joys of living on this earth: the expansive sensation of a free, easy, boundless breath that engages the whole of ourselves and opens us to the fullness of life.

Using ideas, insights, and practices from his highly acclaimed books The Tao of Natural Breathing and Free Your Breath, Free Your Life, Dennis Lewis will take participants on a journey of presence into the physiology, psychology, and spirituality of natural, boundless breathing. Participants will learn and practice the seven basic self-directed ways of working with the breath: conscious breathing, controlled breathing, focused breathing, movement-supported breathing, position-supported breathing, touch-supported breathing, and sound-supported breathing. Through safe, powerful breathing exercises--as well as through special movements, postures, sounds, meditations, qigong practices, and dialogue--participants will learn how to integrate conscious, whole-body breathing into their lives to support their health and their quest for self-knowledge and self-transformation.